“Consistent with the authority vested in me by section 517 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 … I hereby designate the Islamic Republic of Pakistan as a Major Non-NATO Ally of the United States,” Bush said on June 16, 2004 Major non-NATO ally (MNNA) is a designation given by the United States government to close allies who have strategic working relationships with U.S. Armed Forces but are not members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). While the MNNA status does not automatically include a mutual defense pact with the United States, it does confer a variety of military and financial advantages that otherwise are not obtainable by non-NATO countries.